This weekend the world is celebrating the centennial of the end of WWI, a war that was suppose to be the end of all wars. I had many male's ancestors on my Cantley-Halstead line which is my Dad's line, as well as my mother's Seekford-Martin line, that did their bit so to speak for the USA and our allies. But not all men served carrying a gun, or marching through the mud, or in any form of combat in general, some swung an axe...
So let me tell you about my Grand Uncle "William Clarence Halstead" who was stationed in the Pacific Northwest, of the good old USA, as part of the "Spruce Squadron". He was born in 1895 in Peytona District of Boone County, West Virginia to James Halstead and Philena Keffer. Peytona can be found along the Coal River which runs near the county seat of Madison and near the town of Racine in Boone County, making Coal mining the main occupation, however William's family were farmers of poor soil
Farms of the 1880s were predominately independent or subsistence entities where everything needed by the family was raised or manufactured. Extended family and close neighbors provided the bulk of the basic needs of the farm family. Because cash was not readily available on the subsistence farm, barter was an important element of the agricultural economy. All the families living near William C. Halstead's family, the Meadows, the Harless's, and the Workman's are interconnected through marriage, as with small town's everyone knew each other up and down the hollow.
When WWI started the United States under the presidency of Woodrow Wilson had no intention of entering the War. The American public reflected the sentiment of isolation and remaining neutral, a strong sentiment shared by the Irish, German and Scandinavian Americans, and church leaders as well as mothers throughout the United Stated. Most Americans opinion on Germany was very negative and Europe in general, due to an anti monarchy sentiment for raging war over boundaries and petty family squabbles. But when reports started hitting the US papers on atrocities in Belgium in 1914 and following the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915, American sentiment changed seeing Germany as the aggressor in Europe.
Then in January 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. Then the German Foreign minister Arthur Zimmerman, invited Mexico to join the war in Germany as an ally against the United States. In return, Germany would send Mexico money, which after the revolution would be welcomed and would help in the recovery of the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, all states Mexico lost 70 years earlier during the Mexican-American War which was warmup act to the American Civil War. However, the British intelligence intercepted Zimmerman telegram sent to Mexico with the offer of money for their support, and President Wilson released it to the public as a "Cause for War".
At the time of the United States declaration of war in late 1917, we only maintained a small army, and very unprepared Army. After the passage of the Selective Service Act in 1917, 4 million men were drafted in military service.
As late as 1917, the United States maintained only a small army, one
which was in fact smaller than thirteen of the nations and empires
already active in the war. After the passage of the selective service in 1917, it drafted 4 million men into military service . By the summer of 1918, about 2 million US soldiers had arrived in
France, about half of whom eventually saw front-line service; by the
Armistice of November 11 approximately 10,000 fresh soldiers were
arriving in France daily. But some didn't go to France, like my Grand Uncle William C. Halstead they went to Olympic Peninsula in the Northwest to join the "Spruce Squadron".
It was established in 1917 to produce high quality Sitka Spruce timber and other wood products needed for planes. The division was established through the Army Signal Corp's Aviation Section, and headquartered out of Portland Oregon, and the main operation in Vancouver, Washington.
The Spruce Production Division established approximately 60 military
logging camps throughout the Pacific Northwest, usually near existing
sawmills. While privately owned, these mills were operated under the
direction of the army. In early 1918, the division opened a sawmill at Vancouver Barracks, the largest spruce sawmill in the world producing more than one million feet of spruce lumber each day.
The mill complex covered 50 acres and was operated by
2,400 soldiers from the division. The army also built sawmilles in Coquille and Toledo, Oregon and in Port Angeles, Washington.
The armistice that ended World War I was signed on 11 November 1918. The next day, all Spruce Production Division logging ended, most construction projects were stopped, and sawmill operations were curtailed. Government machinery and equipment from all over the Northwest was shipped back to the Vancouver Barracks, and division personnel were quickly discharged from military service.
William Clarence Halstead came back to West Virginia he continued working as an Insurance Agent in Charleston and commuted on weekends home to rural Boone County, were his wife Opal was a school teacher. He died in September 1958 of Heart Disease at the VA Hospital in Huntington.
So even though he didn't carry a gun but an axe, he didn't shoot Germans, he chopped down trees. However his service was valuable to the war production, because without those planes we would of never have been able to shoot down the enemy, including Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen "The Red Baron" a fighter pilot in the German Air Force. Hes was considered the ace of aces of the war, being official credited with 80 shot down victories. By the end of the war the US Air Service had received some 1214 planes, all in all we help build a strong foundation for the future of the US Air Force.
William C. Halstead is buried in Madison, West Virginia. He only served as a private but he served, he did his bit, as I said not as others think of serving but he still served and was buried as such.
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